On Christmas morning of 2008 I felt loved. I was surrounded Jade and Gemma, the “new” kid, Rafferty, my wife Rebecca, a dog, too many cats and mountains of crumpled wrapping paper. We were doing what had become our tradition— eating Rebecca’s fresh baked cinnamon rolls, drinking coffee, and taking turns opening way too many presents. It was a good morning, and Rebecca gave me something unexpected that I’d wanted for years— a $25 ticket to see Chuck Berry perform at a St. Louis bar and restaurant called Blueberry Hill.
The shows are legendary. Once a month since 1996 Chuck Berry has played for a few hundred people in a wee little room in the basement of the restaurant. The rumor was that Berry was happy there, playing for the sheer joy of it, with many people coming from miles around for the experience.
My ticket was for early January, just three weeks away. Rebecca didn’t give me a plane ticket or make a hotel reservation. For the five years she had known me one thing or another always cropped up to prevent me from making the pilgrimage. She didn’t know if I could attend the show. “If you can’t use it, that’s okay,” she said. “But you should try.”
It didn’t take much to convince me. In fact, it seemed preordained. Just before Christmas I’d received a letter from Delta Airlines telling me to use the miles I’d accumulated immediately or lose them forever. It turned out I had just enough miles to pay my transportation to St. Louis— and exactly four days to make the purchase. After that, the miles became worthless.
Unfortunately, to use the miles I needed my “pin” number. I didn’t know my pin number. I didn’t recall having one. I called Delta. The lady said she could mail it to me, but it would take a week. By then my miles would expire. “Sorry,” she told me.
But some sweet little guardian angel wanted me to go. I leafed through my file of mileage plan documents and found four digits scribbled in pencil on a sheet from Delta. Could this be my pin? I typed them into the Delta website, and presto! As the song says:
I got a booking
With the airline
Suddenly I was excited. I booked a motel within walking distance of Blueberry Hill. Then, surfing for information about the shows, I found the official Chuck Berry website. I had seen it before, but I had never paid much attention. Now I felt an urge to post something. I wrote an “open letter” to Chuck Berry’s son, Charles II, who moderated the site under the name CBII. “I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you something you already know, which is how much your dad has meant to the world.” I wrote about the poetry, the guitar, the showmanship. Charles surprised me by responding. A few days later I wrote about stalling my car in Chuck Berry’s driveway. That one got several responses. It was fun, for the first time in decades, to be sharing my secret obsession.
I got to St. Louis on a freezing cold afternoon and took the MetroLink train to University City. The only other passengers were some airport workers. Across the aisle an African American woman about my age was reading a biography of Chuck Berry. When I told her that I’d travelled all the way from Seattle to see him that evening she smiled. I took it as a good omen.
I had French onion soup and a cheeseburger. Onion soup is popular in St. Louis, but with its most famous resident. Chuck once told The New Yorker that “France has the worst restaurants of all. They have scrawny chickens in their windows and serve horrible onion soup that tastes like dishwater.” After dinner I got in line beneath a collection of hundreds of photos of celebrities, and then off we went into the Duck Room, where I scrambled to one of a hundred or so folding metal chairs beneath the low stage. The rest of the people would stand behind us.
The Duck Room is tiny, wider than it is deep, with a bar in the rear. It’s mostly brick and black timbers. Ducks of various sorts line the walls. I sit next to two guys a few years older than myself. They are both from the area—or at least were born there. They remember hanging out at Berry Park in the 1960s or 1970s. There is an opening act—a trio of musical prodigies. But they aren’t Chuck Berry.
Then comes Chuck Berry’s band. His son, Charles II, backs him on guitar. Charles has his dad’s good looks, but not his hair. His head is shaved and he wears glasses. This particular night he’s got a Fender Stratocaster guitar. Also on stage is Chuck’s long time bassist and collaborator, Jimmy Marsala. Marsala has played with Chuck Berry for decades. He brought Berry’s Cadillac to Lompoc Prison in California when Berry was released after a stint for tax evasion. I’ve seen him on television and videos. The drummer is St. Louis local Keith Robinson. Robert Lohr is on keyboards. It’s my first time hearing him. He plays like Johnnie Johnson and Lafayette Leake.
This band doesn’t do one of those typical warm ups for the star. They wait, but not long. Joe Edwards, the owner of Blueberry Hill, comes out to make the introduction. And then, to roars, Chuck Berry—tall as ever, unbent at 82 years old, grinning, with a white captain’s hat, and none of the grump I saw eight years earlier at the EMP in Seattle.
And here's why: he's with a group of great musicians who love him— and it shows. He’s happy, trading beats with the wonderful Robinson; sidling up to his son and Marsala; laughing with keyboardist Lohr. It's a great band that knows exactly what to do. And what they do best is make Chuck Berry comfortable.
This night Chuck's fingers don't do quite what they used to do—what they still can do now and then— but his voice and spirits are strong. And whatever he lacks in picking skill tonight he makes up in guitar wisdom, playing with brilliant economy and knocking out the weird rhythm chords that are a much a part of his playing as the double-string leads.
I’m reasonably certain that the guitar he’s playing is the same one I saw him play in Seattle in 1989—a wine red Gibson ES 355 semi hollow body. Unlike the older guitar on display upstairs, which is in pristine condition, this one is battered, scratched, duct-taped, missing parts— and evidently very good. This is the guitar that Thomas from Sweden calls “The Holy Grail.” It'll need to go on display somewhere someday—some place important.
He plays “Memphis,” “You Never Can Tell,” “Nadine,” B. B. King’s “Rock Me Baby,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Around and Around,” “Bio,” “School Day,” and “Reeling and Rocking.” “Around and Around” is fitting. This joint is rocking and the place is packed.
He forgets the lyrics once or twice— notably during School Days. ("I've forgotten the second verse but I can still PLAY the mother!") But when he forgets CBII or Marsala lean in with a reminder and it’s back to the races, with newly modified lyrics rattling out as usual.
My favorite song of the night is a country waltz called “Love in ¾ Time.” I’ve never heard it, and at the time I hope it is a new Chuck Berry song. A bit of googling proves otherwise. But like a couple of others—“It Hurts Me, Too,” and “Mean Old World”— it’s a song he makes his own.
I like enchiladas
And old El Dorados that shine
My best red guitar
And songs about women and wine
When he finishes with “Reeling and Rocking” the usual flock of women and girls jump on stage to dance with the band. A young one does everything in her power to attract his attention. As usual he leaves the stage before the song ends. He doesn’t back off bowing, just steps through the stage door, still playing. The band works its way through another 12 or 24 bars. And then— don't ask me how—Chuck finishes it with the trademark string of guitar notes and descending ninth chords that he often uses to slam a song shut. The tone is unmistakable.
After the show a door opens on stage, and he sits at the threshold on a spindly folding chair to sign autographs. I’ve got a picture I took at the Seattle Paramount 20 years earlier. In the photograph he’s wearing a colorful print shirt and the $8 red pants from La Cienega. His eyes are shut. He’s smiling. He’s playing in the key of G, which tells me it is probably a blues—maybe just after his little dance for my ex. He is blurred by movement. The picture is dark, and before the show I walked all over the neighborhood searching for a park and pay, or someplace to buy a silver Sharpie, but no luck. I don’t even have a pen.
I kneel down and hand him the photo.
I’m nearly speechless.
"You're still my hero," is all can say— not much changed from when I yelled "You're my idol" 38 years earlier. He doesn’t respond. He looks exhausted, eyes glazed by fatigue and by the mind numbing experience of meeting yet another fan. He looks at the dark picture and smiles a bit—it’s definitely one he has never seen—then looks at his dark blue pen, probably wondering where, on this dark shot, he is supposed to sign his name. He finds a place on the shirt where the ink can be seen, if faintly.
I pull out a drawing that my son Rafferty made at preschool. It’s a four year old's vision of his father’s hero in red, yellow and green washable marker, with the name “Chuck” spelled backwards, perfectly, all letters and order reversed, as if he written through the looking glass. Rafferty’s teacher surprised me with it just before I left for St. Louis. “It was Rafferty’s idea,” she said. “He told me you were going and that you might meet Chuck Berry. He wants you to take this to him.”
I talked with Rafferty about it.
“Would you like him to sign it for you?” I asked.
“No,” said Rafferty. “I want him to keep it.”
So I tell Chuck Berry. “This is from a four year old boy in Seattle. He asked me to give it to you.”
Chuck almost autographs it. He might even make that baroque “C” that he uses. Then, with just a hint of a smile, he stops, and says quietly "Oh, this is for me!"
(This is part of a book length piece about how a musician and songwriter affected my life. If you want to read more of it, you can start over on the right. The whole thing is organized by chapter below.)
11/13/12 3:39 (22)
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